Friday, March 19, 2004
I said in a previous entry that the national game of Canada is lacrosse. I can't speak for other provinces, but in Ontario it appears that the provincial game is "Drive As Badly As You Can On The Highways".
There are bad drivers everywhere in the world, but I've never seen it so bad as here. Maybe it's complacency - which would certainly explain the ridiculous costs for motor insurance in Ontario.
Yesterday, I was quoted $7,675 for one year's insurance, and I have been driving since my early twenties (I am in my late thirties), I have never had an accident - never made an insurance claim, never even had a speeding nor parking ticket. Somehow, I'm classed as a risk - more risky than 16 year olds who have never had insurance before. This is stunning, and it leaves me reeling. How can this be the case?
It's not just one particular insurer, either. It's all of them. I've called half a dozen of them, and they all say the same thing. Please take into account though, that the Canadian Insurance Industry is having a hard time, post 11/Sep/2001 [for our US readers, "9/11"], which is why they only made a piffling profit last year of TWO POINT SIX BILLION DOLLARS.
So you think they'd make it easy to take this $7,675 off me, right? Hahahaha. Go to a website and try to plug in your details, and you won't be able to enter your previous address because the post code is not in the format that they recognise. Silly me, I'm only an immigrant. Canada only has an intake of 300,000 of us a year, that's 1% of the population annually.
Back to my original gripe though; the quality of driving. Perhaps if people wouldn't drive at 20+ kph over the limit while drinking coffee and/or on the phone, there'd be fewer accidents. Fewer accidents means less payout by the insurers, which means cheaper premiums.
Wake up people - weaving from lane to lane without signalling is not clever, and it's likely to leave your kids without a parent. Not that I care - it's Darwinism at it's finest, but you're costing me dollars, man.
See, living next to the Americans has made a capitalist out of me. Only took 5 weeks...
There are bad drivers everywhere in the world, but I've never seen it so bad as here. Maybe it's complacency - which would certainly explain the ridiculous costs for motor insurance in Ontario.
Yesterday, I was quoted $7,675 for one year's insurance, and I have been driving since my early twenties (I am in my late thirties), I have never had an accident - never made an insurance claim, never even had a speeding nor parking ticket. Somehow, I'm classed as a risk - more risky than 16 year olds who have never had insurance before. This is stunning, and it leaves me reeling. How can this be the case?
It's not just one particular insurer, either. It's all of them. I've called half a dozen of them, and they all say the same thing. Please take into account though, that the Canadian Insurance Industry is having a hard time, post 11/Sep/2001 [for our US readers, "9/11"], which is why they only made a piffling profit last year of TWO POINT SIX BILLION DOLLARS.
So you think they'd make it easy to take this $7,675 off me, right? Hahahaha. Go to a website and try to plug in your details, and you won't be able to enter your previous address because the post code is not in the format that they recognise. Silly me, I'm only an immigrant. Canada only has an intake of 300,000 of us a year, that's 1% of the population annually.
Back to my original gripe though; the quality of driving. Perhaps if people wouldn't drive at 20+ kph over the limit while drinking coffee and/or on the phone, there'd be fewer accidents. Fewer accidents means less payout by the insurers, which means cheaper premiums.
Wake up people - weaving from lane to lane without signalling is not clever, and it's likely to leave your kids without a parent. Not that I care - it's Darwinism at it's finest, but you're costing me dollars, man.
See, living next to the Americans has made a capitalist out of me. Only took 5 weeks...
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